Anywho, into Jeffeus, who was willing to put up with my nonsensical wall of meat:
Thexus1 - 3x Wrecker, 3x Warden, Subduer, 3x Agitator, 2x Dominator + Eliminators
Objective: Stockpile
It's our meta's signature faction with anyone-but-Xekaar.
Morghoul1 - Sentry, 2x Aradus Soldier, Krea, Zaadesh1 + Gladiator, Paingivers (Min), Karax, Blood Runners, Master Tormentor
Objective: Stockpile
The more I think about Zaadesh the more I like it. I was really bemused at first, not because its bad, rather its something I don't think I would have ever come up with independently which makes it much more interesting.
Scenario is Extraction/Baseball diamond. Most relevant terrain is one sides objective has a load of water impeding movement from the deployment zone, the other side has a nice wall/trench combo deal going on.
Going in I was expecting that I'd feat to scalpel out Zaadesh and otherwise initiate the piece trade on the Aradus. Bloodrunners likely don't achieve much, though usually a couple live on to get to one of my support models. I have to be very aware of Morghouls personal threat (14.5 with Sidesteps). Sod all guns, so Stockpile and Sac Pawn weren't going to be stellar, but that seems to be the case quite frequently.
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Merc Deploy: I won the die roll and picked first, so Jefades corrently picked the good side and gave me the Swimming Pond presumably filled with algae.
There's a hill on the left there, though given that Morghoul dictates Thexus' location I expect it won't be assisting the Defence 10 army a great deal.
Out of this pics frame is an awkward forest around the right flag, particularly relevant in that I positioned a pair of the Slammers over there and that can muck up my opening advances.
Subduer far left, Mostly Wreckers central with the aforementioned Wardens out right.
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Skorne Deploy: Blurry image to incite memories of Starship Troopers, the trilogy. Seriously, they made more. I just double checked, I didn't know they made a fourth one. What have we become?
That house basement thingy (technical term) to the left is the trench, that hill on the right is going to be forgotten about to I looked at the photo just then.
Very much beasts to the left, countering my own clearly weighted deployment, infantry schlobs to the right.
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Merc 1: No guns, so Deflection isn't an issue. It's feed up and get moving. Just before, I had a quick convo with Robeidon on the excellence of POW 9 Eliminators for Monstrosity angering purposes.
Naturally, as a contrary moron, I used a Dominator to stab a Monstrosity for half a dozen points. Genius.
The Monstrosites all ran/Slammed.
Thexus TK'd the Wreckers and did his healing shtick.
Subduer stays far left, Wreckers are up front.
With that water I needed to TK to brute force my way through it, though now I ponder if I don't give enough credence to maxing out a Monstrosity with three focus early, maybe even one of the Slam bots. Do I get enough out of those two inch placements early on? To be considered further.
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Skorne 1: The Skorne beasts move up cautiously, while the infantry curves forward toward the right flag. The Blood Runners stay out of the forest, ready to Apparition in for Line of Sight, which is both Clever and annoying. Clenoying if you will.
The centre Aradus gets Admonition, Zaadesh goes into the trench and promptly pays the asking price, determined to never leave (Reference: Mysterious wand poking out from the left Aradus).
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Merc 2: I am fortunate, both that we are not playing on clock and that Jeffemis deals with knee biters and thus has developed deific patience (Probably where the Greek thing keeps coming from), as I go deeeeep into the tank here.
It's top of two, I want to feat and get this piece trade rolling. Through some convoluted math, I fathom that I can kill both Aradus. If Thexus was Focus 11.
I could do one or the other, but then I'm using my feat to start a weak trade in my view.
Regretfully, I conclude the best play is the most boring one and do sod all. The Eliminators will be able to feed again, I can heal that earlier spike damage. It means I'll likely be feating around Morghouls own feat and have to deal with infantry jam, but the magic of Thresher makes the latter dealable and the former I try to handle by spreading the battlegroup out in a wide line, so I can redoploy toward the right with models as an option.
The Subduer goes far left, hoping to drag in Zaadesh or an Aradus next turn, everything else just walks around.
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Skorne 2: Sure enough, the Karax come a knocking. One charges the right most Warden, though rolls poorly on damage. The Bloodrunners do the Apparate trick, but find the slabs of man meat unpalatable and settle for spreading out in the forest.
The Master Tormentor sits behind the forest in contest range of the right flag.
Beast, Zaadesh and his bro hang back and give out some Rushes.
The Admonitioned Aradus goes behind the wall, his other fella hops to the left flag.
The Basilisk Krea, one of the Rush recipients, moves up and shoots a Wrecker with Paralysis that I Shield Guard to a Warden (third monstrosity from the left).
Skorne go to 1 CP.
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Merc 3: Once more I looked to pop both Aradii and am denied. Any other beast I could Rampager over the wall, but the beetle lacks the sodding movement to get his carapace endowed abdomen up and over the pebble frontier.
I've been forced into killing only what I was presented with. I haven't lost any Monstrosities, so my overall stance is good, but the initiative feels like it belongs to Skorne.
There's some light stabbing by Eliminators, Agitators advance and Instigate.
The Paralysed Monstrosity waddles forward into triggering Admonition range. It's not triggered, so I then arc through that Warden to Hex Blast it off and TK Morghoul away and turn him around (This seems to be my theme for running Thexus), then do another TK to move the scoring Aradus forward. I feat, hitting most of the Skorne bar Zaadesh (Dammit!), the Gladiatior and the outer rim of infantry.
On the left, the Subduer aims and drags in the Aradus, damaging it enough for the nearby Wrecker to charge and finish it off.
On the right, the Wrecker charges to a location just outside of Morghouls feat range to kill some Karax and the Krea. One of the Warden pairs sits near him and and kills some infantry, the other Slams way to the right, more out of hope that it'll distract the Blood Runners than anything else.
By my eyeball I've given up two Wardens and a Wrecker, that's painful but well within the list's means.
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Skorne 3: Guess this'll be a wordy one. Some games are just thinky you know?
The Blood Runners snort at my distraction attempt and move in, killing the right most Agitator and doing a little to the Warden.
The Karax spread out, essentially getting out of the way.
Team hand-out-Rush does their thing and hangs a portrait up in their trench home.
Morghoul chills out the back, Abuses his remaining battlegroup.
The Gladiator charges the Warden that a helpful Eliminator and the Blood Runners softened up, goes to three Fury to top it off. Dice + 4 or so on damage is pretty good. He then stabs the Warden he's next to and lops off an arm.
The Aradus charges through to the Wrecker next to the Objective, drags it in and munches it, then thoroughly mucks up the Arc Nodey Warden though doesn't kill him.
That went a lot better than expected, particularly once the damage dice math came tumbling out. There is a very real expectation on everyone I've played that the Monstrosities will fold like paper towels, but the hit box count does wonders.
Tormentor taps the right flag, Skorne go to 2 CP.
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Merc 4: My lines are a bit messy at this point. A particular issue is that the water makes getting the central, back up Agitator to the right, where he is needed, somewhat more annoying.. Other than that complication, its looking good, I'll eat the Aradus and Sentry and attrition looks good.
The Monstrosities are either heavily damaged or full up, which means the Eliminators become infantry clearance, which has been pretty standard at this stage of the game.
On the left they clear off the Karax around the flag then Sidestep up to the wall. I don't have enough attacks to get rid of the last Karax behind the wall, so no scoring for me alas.
On the right the Eliminators clear off some blocking Blood Runners and step toward the forest.
Thexus TK's the left most Wrecker and the right most Warden to fix up their facing, does the same to the central Agitator to get him up the board toward the Sentry, then heals the damage.
Around the Sentry, the Wrecker wails on him for a fair amount of damage but doesn't quite get the job done, leaving it to the right Warden to come in and get the job done.
The left Wrecker goes into the Aradus, some mad rolling kills it in short order. The Warden that the bug mauled the previous turn walks back to the Objective.
Subduer wonders back onto the hill.
In the midst of my turn I realised I'd done something very dumb. The left Eliminators sidestepped out of the Dominators command range. 10 inches is clearly not enough, need to be command 12.
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Skorne 4: So there is an assassination run here. Gladiator slams the Wrecker into Thexus, then Morghoul moves up and Magic pews pews him down. Measuring it out, with Rush and Abuse he's half an inch shy. More on that later.
The Master Tormentor goes into the right Eliminators and whiffs.
Zaadesh moves up, hits the Subduer with Torment and moves the Gladiator up. Subduer Hyper Aggresives forward.
With the Torment move, and neither of us clicked this at the time, the Gladiator now had range to do the slam. It's be unboosted, but he only needs a four to land the slam and with the +2 distance bonus at most the slam roll would need to be a 2. I worked it out in my next turn, looking at it in the aftermath it doesn't quite work out because of the Eliminators. They don't free strike, but they are currently blocking the way, the only real means to kill them is Morghoul, which means he isn't zapping Thexus. the Slam damage roll can one shot Thexus, but the odds aren't high.
Anyway, that obviously didn't happen, instead the Gladiator got abused and enraged and wiped the floor with the bloody meat pie that was the Subduer when he was finished with it.
The few remaining Karax jam up the right Wrecker.
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Merc 5: Press the advantage, keep Thexus alive time.
On the right the Eliminators paste the Master Tormentor but can't get to the flag to score.
Agitators advance and Instigate (They are the make-100-photocopies drones of the Cephalyx hives).
Wardens move up and kill Karax on the right Wrecker, forcing the last one to be promoted which stops him free striking the left Wrecker as it charges the Gladiator (Had I lacked free charges or been short a focus I wouldn't have done that, being very healthy the Wrecker is better off taking a free strike for some irrelevant damage and gaining a focus point) and comfortably wipes it away.
Thexus' giant brain mass (That 8th point of Focus takes a lot of effort to get without divine/timelord intervention) wobbles in fear as he floats to the right (Caphalyx float but don't have flight?! Better make a forum post on the main page about this injustice that PP must correct!).
Remaining Wrecker walks to be in front of Thexus just in case, I'd originally planned to send him into the opposing objective but without flag point scores there isn't much value in it.
Jefades starts his turn and concedes, which is fair. He can definitely kill one Monstrosity, longs odds at 2, then Morghoul gets TK'ed in, surrounded to stop the Dodge away moves and pounded by heavies.
A good game, I'm enjoying Cephalyx thoroughly. I can't picture changing the list, which fundamentally is very hard to do. The Warden ratio is enough to get the list going without focus struggles, a single Subduer works given his very specific niche abilities, Wreckers are expensive enough that a fourth would make the list drop below its trade threshold. Eliminators are gold.
Hyper Aggressive/Sac Pawn/Deflection have all been underutilized, by our local Cancon Tyrant wants to plonk down some swans so we'll see (ITS ON THE INTERNET NOW HADEO IT HAS TO HAPPEN NOW).
